Prologue
Before he was a king, he was a crack in the sky.
Alaric did not know the dark warmth of a womb, the loving words of a parent, nor the joys and tribulations of childhood. He began as a violent ache in the throat of the Cosmos and the dreaming sighs of the Soul Weaver. The universe demanded a terrible paradox of her loom: a being with a brutal temperament to shatter Zeus’s corrupt pantheon, yet coded with an incorruptible soul designed only to protect the weak.
The physical descent of that creation erupted with the force of a blinding genesis. Out of raw cosmic intent, the dream-woven soul collided with sheets of white-hot lightning and roaring thunderous booms, forging a lethal mass of muscle and trapped storms. When his eyes snapped open, they were a volatile furnace of electric blue, and enormous midnight wings unfurled from his shoulders. He was a Thunderbird God designed to rend the sky and rewrite the realms.
Yet, true to his gentle design, Alaric loathed the heavy mantle of power and desired no glory or gain for himself. Seeking to escape his own divine nature, he plummeted through the clouds, folding his terrifying wings within his skin, and hid away in the mortal dirt.
It was in a secluded, sun-dappled valley that the weapon met the weaver. Maeve was a mortal woman, but to Alaric, she was more vibrant than any star. Together, they built an isolated life of quiet simplicity, tilling the earth and laughing in the spring rain. She was his fated mate and his ultimate refuge.
But the valley walls of their haven could not hold the illusion of peace. As Olympus’s cruelties bled into the earth, the calls of the weak grew too loud to ignore. Driven by love and a choice more precious than any fated bond, Maeve refused to let him face the darkness alone.
Together, they marched to Mount Olympus to shoulder a legacy he had never wanted - and a future that would ultimately leave her behind.
